Climatic Forecast

Abstract

The forecasting unit is the nerve center of the Israel Meteorological Service (IMS). Its sizeable budget and staff are engaged directly (the forecast center) or indirectly (computer, communication, radiosonde and research unit, station network, instrument repairing workshop, etc.) in the forecasting procedure. Obviously, forecasting centers of the 1990s differ from those of the 1950s. The noisy teleprinters and the manually drawn synoptic maps have been replaced by online computer terminals, connected to international weather centers transmitting synoptic and prognostic maps for the next 6 days with increasing reliability. Other terminals are connected to antennas, receiving geosynchronous¹ and orbiting² satellite images; still others are connected to radar displaying images of the rain droplets in clouds. In addition, computerized plotters are drawing the synoptic charts.

On the night after the last day of the Tabernacle Feast, all would gaze at the smoke [rising] from the altar. If the smoke drifted north, the poor people would be happy, while the [wealthy] homeowners would be distressed, for [this indicated] that the rains for the coming would be excessive, and the produce [in the storehouses] would rot. If the smoke drifted south, the poor people would be distressed, while the homeowners would be happy -for the rains for the coming year would be sparse and the produce would be spared. If the smoke drifted east, all would be happy; westward, all would be distressed. Babylonian Talmud, Yonta, 21b

Or geostationary satellites. Five satellites are located above the earth with 70° between them at the equator (at 36,000 Km — three times the earth diameter). Their angular speed is equal to that of the earth. Therefore, from the earth’s frame of references, they are stationary.

These satellites are at 900 km and circle the earth in a polar orbit (passing over the Polar regions).